Daphne watched in something close to awe as Sabine decapitated the small Reliquus in one quick, clean sword stroke. Its gooey, froglike head bounced a few times on the gritty pavement before it and the slimy body it had recently been attached to faded into nothingness. Daphne knew that once the Reliquus disappeared, she and Sabine would be visible to passerby again, so she pulled up her socks and tried to look as if she hadn't been chasing an angry magical frog spirit down the street.

Sabine straightened up and wiped the blade of her sword on her jean shorts. "Looks like practice paid off," she said with a confident smile.

"Yeah, it did!" Daphne agreed enthusiastically. "We took out how many today?"

"This one makes five," Sabine proudly announced. Her pride turned into an endearing shyness as she started to giggle, letting her blonde curls spill down over her forehead. "Daphne and Sabine, magical monster hunters. We should go into business! Take out an ad."

"Maybe we should," Daphne replied. "We'd do a lot of good in the world. Goodness knows it needs some right now," she said. Police sirens echoed off the wall of the alley where they stood. Sabine didn't say anything, only put a comforting hand on Daphne's arm, causing her to smile faintly. "Come on," she said at last. "Let's make the world a better place."

The two set out again, Sabine's sword tucked into her belt, Daphne's wand raised aloft and glowing as it sensed magical energy. "Like radar," Sabine had said, but Daphne didn't know what radar was. Sabine had tried her best to teach Daphne about mortal tech like cell phones, television, and video games, but she still wasn't quite used to it (and Sabine was still embarrassingly better than her at that little jumping ball game she had on her phone).

The wand glowed a steady dark blue at the tip, indicating there was little magical activity in the area. Sabine gasped as the light flickered. "There!" she cried. "We're close!"

"You're too excited," Daphne scolded gently. "It's too small to be a Reliquus. It's probably just a runaway charm or some other leftover magic."

"I know," Sabine replied earnestly, almost wiggling with enthusiasm. "I just want our first hunt to go well!"

"We already took out five of them. Don't get greedy," said Daphne with a gentle laugh. "It's almost time when people get out of work and school. Maybe we should head back to—"

But her next words were cut off by another sharp gasp from Sabine. "We found one!" she exclaimed, pointing at the wand; the tip now glowed a pale shade of turquoise. "Come on, Daphne!" laughed Sabine, taking hold of her non-wand hand and pulling her forward. Running ahead of her like that, Sabine looked to Daphne like some goddess: her curls bounced brightly around her shoulders, her sneaker-clad feet danced lightly over the gritty pavement, and her lean, athletic body seemed quick and pure as mercury.

"You have to stop doing that," Daphne said wheezily as the two stumbled to a halt.

"Sorry," replied Sabine. Her cheeks glowed pink with excitement. "I got carried away."

"You carried me away," Daphne replied, also smiling. Her smile quickly faded from her face, though, when she glanced back down at her wand. "Sabine, get behind me now."

Sabine immediately obeyed, pulling out her saber and holding it ready. "What's wrong?"

Daphne looked down at her wand again. It was no longer turquoise but a bright white. Daphne thought she could feel it vibrating in her hand—but maybe it was just the nervous heartbeat in her fingers. "I think we should leave," she said shakily.

"A Reliquus?"

"I think so. Maybe. But Sabine, it's big. I don't know if we can—"

Daphne was slammed by a huge, invisible force and flew backwards through the air, landing in a rough, grinding skid on the pavement. She cried out as the ground tore through her knee socks and into the skin on her knees, but she didn't let go of her wand this time. She stood up, knees and elbows burning with pain but ready to fight—until she saw what was looming over them.

The Reliquus, now visible to her thanks to its attack, resembled a dog the way a hurricane resembled April Showers. It stood on its four clawed paws at least twenty feet over their heads. Its discolored, wet-looking nose twitched as it sniffed. Its muzzle wrinkled into a fearsome growl while its cloudy, pupil-less eyes rolled madly. It turned its face toward Sabine, who seemed to be shocked into stillness, and lunged.

"No!" Daphne screamed, but Sabine had brought her sword up just in time. The Reliquus seized her in its drooling mouth. At the same time she sliced upwards and took a chunk off the beast's nose, which immediately began dripping translucent ooze. The Reliquus yelped and let her go, but Daphne could see blood on her shirt and the hopelessness in her eyes.

This was huge, bigger and more fearsome even than the first of the Reliqua they had encountered. Daphne knew with a sickening certainty that this fight wouldn't be as quick and clean as the last.

But she charged forward anyway.

"Sabine! We can take it!" she screamed, raising her wand high. She let her fear and pumping panic fuel the bolt of the force spell she shot towards the Reliquus. It was a solid hit. The Reliquus bayed, revealing a mouth that was filled with dull brown teeth and the characteristic mottled ooze of Reliqua.

She shot another pulse of dark blue energy at it, just as she had shot at all those trees in practice. But the trees didn't have quite so many teeth, she thought with a strange clarity as she ran towards the beast, still throwing powerful magic at it.

Sabine joined her, running at her side with her powerful saber ready to swing. She leapt ahead of Daphne, and with a grunt and a swing of her sword, she cut into the massive paw. It howled and snapped at them, but they had been dodging attacks all day. They both jumped out of the way, and Sabine stuck a quick jab in the muzzle, for good measure.

Daphne was actually feeling pretty good about how this was going before the Reliquus did something totally unexpected: it ran away.

"Where's it going?" Sabine shouted.

"Away," Daphne answered unhelpfully. She was too confused to think of a better response.

"Oh well," said Sabine, wiping her sword off on her hip again. "The one that got away, I guess. Oh, gosh, your knees!"

"That's the least of our problems," Daphne replied, her mouth dry. "Sabine, we have to go after it."

"I thought I was the one who was into this stuff?"

"If we don't get it now, it will go and fight someone else! I mean, it would have eventually attacked anyway, because as far as we can tell they attack humans when they see them, but if we hadn't chased it out of this alley it might not have seen anyone for weeks!" She hurried off in the direction it had gone.

Sabine followed her, keeping up easily. "You're right! And oh, I just thought of something! Now that it's not attacking us, will I even be able to see it?"

"I don't know. We need to find it before it hurts someone else!" Daphne said. Sweat dripped off her forehead and upper lip, conjured by exertion and worry. Daphne's heart thudded in her chest, making her blood pulse uncomfortably in her sweating neck, the pit of her stomach, and her fingers, gripped tightly around her wand. What if it disappeared again? What if it attacked some innocent bystander before they found it? What if they couldn't find it at all?

Her worry doubled when a scream echoed through the midmorning air.

"This way!" Sabine yelled, taking the lead. The girls ran onto a dingy street with cracked pavement and abandoned houses. "There, at the end of the street, behind those dumpsters!" Sabine yelled. They could just make out the furry back of the Reliquus, which jumped, lunged, and thrashed. It had found a new target

Daphne and Sabine charged forward weapons high, but before they were even close, the Reliquus let out a whining roar. Loud, terrified yelling rang out from behind the dumpsters. "Go away! Go away!" someone screamed. There was a grunt. There was a crunch. There was a snap.

Then there was silence.

Sabine reached the dumpster first. She took one cautious look around the side before frantically motioning to Daphne. She hurried forward, wand raised and ready. Her thoughts were jumbled in a haze of panic. She fully expected the Reliquus to be crouching in wait for them, or a poor mortal's body—Oh, stars, that death would be on her hands—lying torn at its feet. But instead she found something much different.

It was a girl. Her clothes were torn and her dark skin was splattered with blood, but she was alive. Lying in a heap was the quickly vanishing body of the dead Reliquus.

When she saw the two, she jumped up faster than Daphne would have thought for someone who looked so injured and frazzled. In her hand was a long, cracked wooden board with several nails shoved through the end.

"Whoa!" said Sabine, tucking her sword away and putting up her hands. "We aren't going to hurt you." But the girl didn't drop her makeshift club. Her eyes were heavy and wary.

"Who are you?" she croaked.

"We're here to help."

"Who are you?" she yelled again, taking a menacing step forward. Sabine instinctively put her hand back on her sword. The girl's eyes followed the movement with practiced ease and she lifted the board. "Tell me who you are and what that thing is," she said, pointing at the Reliquus's nearly transparent body, "Or I'll make you tell me."